The second practice session at Bahrain brought further evidence of Ferrari’s long-run pace but Mercedes and McLaren are up there with the on one-lap performance.

We look set for an entertaining qualifying session tomorrow. Here’s how all the teams got on in second practice today:

McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari

FP2 times: McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull

The McLaren and Mercedes drivers set their fastest times on qualifying simulations, as did Felipe Massa. But it looks like Alonso hasn’t shown his hand yet with a low-fuel run.

Massa’s long run looks good compared with those of the McLaren drivers:

Lap

Felipe Massa

Jenson Button

Lewis Hamilton

1

2’00.153

2’02.481

2’01.793

2

2’04.201

2’02.189

2’02.543

3

2’00.613

2’05.157

2’02.274

4

2’00.331

2’01.963

2’02.085

5

2’06.368

2’02.509

2’02.439

6

2’00.087

2’02.464

2’03.036

7

2’00.347

2’02.351

2’02.890

8

2’00.792

2’02.782

2’11.859

9

2’00.377

2’03.268

2’34.349

10

2’04.929

2’03.537

2’01.617

11

2’00.031

2’02.242

2’01.668

12

2’00.615

2’02.405

2’01.937

13

2’01.123

2’06.497

2’10.953

14

2’00.810

15

2’00.877

Early in the session Hamilton aborted one run on the medium tyres having quickly destroyed them – a problem with tyre allocations so tightly restricted this year.

Mercedes one-lap pace looks promising, at least in the hands of Nico Rosberg. Although Michael Schumacher admitted afterwards to being “rusty”, his long-run pace compares favourable with Rosberg’s.

Red Bull, however, lost a lot of running the afternoon changing Mark Webber’s driveshaft and Sebastian Vettel’s brakes – the latter losing his car under braking for the final corner early in the session.

Williams, Force India, Renault, Toro Rosso and Sauber

FP2 times: Williams, Renault, Force India, Toro Rosso, Sauber

Although Force India topped the times in the first sector it was the VJM03’s pace over long runs that Vitantonio Liuzzi praised following the second session. He felt the car’s one-lap performance wasn’t quite there yet. Both his and Sutil’s long runs looked very consistent.

Sauber showed better pace than they did in the morning but Pedro de la Rosa complained of poor grip and described the turn seven bump as “dangerous”. Kamui Kobayashi suffered a puncture and had to curtail one of his runs.

Rubens Barrichello lost early running due to an electrical problem and finished both sessions almost one second slower than new team mate Nico H?‚??lkenberg. H?‚??lkenberg also looked quicker on his nine-lap stint than Barrichello did on his ten-lapper – of course we don’t know whether they were running the same fuel loads.

Renault said they were happy with the stability of their car under braking. As is to be expected Vitaly Petrov looks some way of Robert Kubica’s pace.

Jaime Alguersuari described the new section of track as “nothing special and very slow” – perhaps that was his revenge for being caught out by the complex where he spun in FP2. Team mate Buemi missed the entire session (apart from a single installation lap) due to car trouble.

Lotus, Virgin and HRT

FP2 Times: Lotus, Virgin, HRT

Bruno Senna logged 17 laps in the HRT and by the end of the session he’d finally managed to beat the best time set during the GP2 Asia practice session.

Worryingly, wheel nut failure brought his car to a halt at the first corner at the end of the session. Team mate Karun Chandhok didn’t do a lap at all despite hopes he would be out during FP2. He has just one hour to complete his first lap in the car before qualifying tomorrow.

Virgin were almost a second off Lotus’s pace in the second session but neither of their cars did low-fuel running and Timo Glock hasn’t tried the super-soft tyres yet.

Top 50 lap times

The top 50 times set during the session:

Rank

Driver

Lap time

Lap

1

Nico Rosberg

115.409

5

2

Nico Rosberg

115.555

2

3

Lewis Hamilton

115.854

7

4

Michael Schumacher

115.854

7

5

Lewis Hamilton

116.051

2

6

Michael Schumacher

116.051

2

7

Jenson Button

116.076

8

8

Sebastian Vettel

116.459

6

9

Nico H?‚??lkenberg

116.501

17

10

Jenson Button

116.516

4

11

Felipe Massa

116.555

27

12

Vitaly Petrov

116.75

10

13

Nico H?‚??lkenberg

116.799

2

14

Felipe Massa

116.81

29

15

Sebastian Vettel

116.924

3

16

Jenson Button

116.944

2

17

Vitaly Petrov

117.053

11

18

Fernando Alonso

117.14

24

19

Pedro de la Rosa

117.255

17

20

Pedro de la Rosa

117.287

16

21

Kamui Kobyashi

117.352

17

22

Adrian Sutil

117.361

7

23

Fernando Alonso

117.415

22

24

Rubens Barrichello

117.452

18

25

Rubens Barrichello

117.455

2

26

Kamui Kobyashi

117.661

16

27

Adrian Sutil

117.706

4

28

Vitaly Petrov

117.711

12

29

Vitantonio Liuzzi

117.833

7

30

Adrian Sutil

117.858

2

31

Fernando Alonso

118.013

19

32

Robert Kubica

118.155

25

33

Vitaly Petrov

118.214

6

34

Robert Kubica

118.226

27

35

Vitantonio Liuzzi

118.364

8

36

Vitaly Petrov

118.429

7

37

Vitantonio Liuzzi

118.533

2

38

Vitaly Petrov

118.952

4

39

Pedro de la Rosa

119.075

13

40

Fernando Alonso

119.087

10

41

Vitantonio Liuzzi

119.305

3

42

Rubens Barrichello

119.305

20

43

Pedro de la Rosa

119.495

12

44

Robert Kubica

119.54

16

45

Jenson Button

119.544

7

46

Vitantonio Liuzzi

119.581

4

47

Fernando Alonso

119.724

11

48

Jaime Alguersuari

119.799

9

49

Robert Kubica

119.826

14

50

Fernando Alonso

119.875

3

Fastest laps

Extended data on the times set by all the drivers.

Pos.

Driver

Car

Fastest

On

Gap

Within 1%

Laps

1

Nico Rosberg

Mercedes

1’55.409

5

0

2

23

2

Lewis Hamilton

McLaren-Mercedes

1’55.854

7

0.445

2

22

3

Michael Schumacher

Mercedes

1’55.903

6

0.494

3

23

4

Jenson Button

McLaren-Mercedes

1’56.076

8

0.667

3

28

5

Sebastian Vettel

Red Bull-Renault

1’56.459

6

1.05

2

18

6

Nico H?‚??lkenberg

Williams-Cosworth

1’56.501

17

1.092

2

26

7

Felipe Massa

Ferrari

1’56.555

27

1.146

2

30

8

Vitaly Petrov

Renault

1’56.750

10

1.341

3

26

9

Fernando Alonso

Ferrari

1’57.140

24

1.731

3

25

10

Pedro de la Rosa

Sauber-Ferrari

1’57.255

17

1.846

2

24

11

Kamui Kobyashi

Sauber-Ferrari

1’57.352

17

1.943

2

27

12

Adrian Sutil

Force India-Mercedes

1’57.361

7

1.952

3

29

13

Rubens Barrichello

Williams-Cosworth

1’57.452

18

2.043

2

21

14

Vitantonio Liuzzi

Force India-Mercedes

1’57.833

7

2.424

3

29

15

Robert Kubica

Renault

1’58.155

25

2.746

2

29

16

Jaime Alguersuari

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

1’59.799

9

4.39

3

31

17

Mark Webber

Red Bull-Renault

2’00.444

6

5.035

8

12

18

Heikki Kovalainen

Lotus-Cosworth

2’00.873

21

5.464

2

23

19

Jarno Trulli

Lotus-Cosworth

2’00.990

13

5.581

1

14

20

Timo Glock

Virgin-Cosworth

2’02.037

2

6.628

1

3

21

Lucas di Grassi

Virgin-Cosworth

2’02.188

6

6.779

2

21

22

Bruno Senna

HRT-Cosworth

2’06.968

16

11.559

2

17

23

Sebastien Buemi

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

7’11.000

1

315.591

1

1

24

Karun Chandhok

HRT-Cosworth

NB. ‘Within 1%’ refers to the number of times a driver set a lap time that was within 1% of his best.

Analysing practice

This is a new series of articles analysing the lap times from practice. If you have any suggestions for improvements or changes you would like to see, please post them in the comments.

66 comments on Bahrain Grand Prix FP2 analysis

I can’t understand the problem that people seem to have with Maclarens f-duct. To me F1 is half about the technology and half about the racing and it is this that makes it stand out above most other motorsports. Unfortunately the days of radical concepts like the Fan Car and 6 wheelers are long gone it is heartening to see Engineers pushing the envelope with ingenious designs like the F-duct. The whole point of having teams develop their own cars is surely to let engineers get around the rules otherwise they might as well have one car for all… I thought the double diffusers were fine last year and the f-duct is fine this year. It seems to me that the other teams are just infuriated that they did not think of it themselves.

Quite right. F1 is about improvement. Rules base is so tight these days, that improvement hardly seems possible, but innovation, even if it is just Buttilton’s left foot getting stuffed in a hole, should be applauded. Saddest part is that F1 rules are so thorough, that it takes something so prosaic to make a difference.

Round of applause to you and the mysterious McLaren employ involved (even if he is just the Woking air-con plant engineer).

Yes, but there are rules and there’s a spirit to the rules which McLaren always seem to want to circumvent. I welcome innovation but the rules should relaxed in that case so that all teams are clear as to what they can do or not.

This not so in the case of this duct and blown wing. The way I see it, the point of the ‘no movable aero part apart from front wing’ idea is that air flow from any part should be a constant and or non-manipulatable. Clearly, McLaren are going against the spirit of that rule here. They might as well change the rules to allow for mechanically adjustable rear wings now as that is in effect what this duct is about.

The concept of adhering to the “Spirit of the Rules” was tested last year by Toyota Williams & Brawn with the “Double Diffuser” issue and was found not to be enforceable – so as in Law a precedent has been set and the bench mark is now “The Letter of The Law” – as it should now we can unshackle the innovative minds of some of the genius’ who walk the corridors of F1 Paddock. :)

There is no spirit of the rules in F1 and there never has been. Ferrari were running illegal parts which kicked of spygate (and to be honest were outright illegal and designed to pull the wool of over the eyes of the fia), renault had their special dampers, brawn, williams and toyota had their duffusers etc etc etc, some are illegal and some are just clever ways of bypassing the rules (remember Ferrari have been instrumental in bending the spirit of the rules with engine upgrades). When teams claim that another team is not abiding by the spirit of the rues it is effectively code for “damn we have been out thought and now we are buggered, lets see if we can kick up enough fuss to get the rules changed AGAIN and save ourselves”. The rules are the rules and that means that if something breaks the rules then it should be banned but also if it does not break the rules it should be allowed, if they don’t want the spirit of the rules broken then just make teams have the same design (but then it would not really be f1 would it?).

To be honest I really wish the rules were relaxed a lot more. Just set some safety rules and some size restrictions etc and then let the engineers do their stuff to make the greatest race machines ever created for the greatest drivers to drive.

Great graphics Keith, congratulations!
One sugestion, the colors of MacLaren and Ferrari¬īs drivers, I suppose orange and red, are too close. I had problems to distinguish the performance of the drivers with my video¬īs resolution.

Good discussion going there over the Mclaren rear wing guys. I see where you are coming from when you say that the driver isnt a moving aero device. But that is really besides the point. The bottom line is that the rear wing would never stall at high speeds, BUT by an action performed consciously by the driver with the clear intent of causing it to stall. Whether its the knees closing a flap, elbow pressing a button, or whatever it does not matter. If the system was totally independent from driver input, I would not have a problem with it. I am all for technical development, in fact its one aspect of the sport I love the most. But this, in my view is clear breach of the rules.

It was clever mechanical device acting as TCS. Operated by the driver, not electronic… declared illegal by the FIA.

I my opinion, both solutions are ingenious and very well deserved praise, not to be frowned at… If it weren’t by this sort of creativity, we could be, very well riding horses these days. F1 should embrace cleverness and tonge-on-the-cheek engineering.

I think that will be the case tomorrow. Last years pole didn’t win either though if you recall. I believe as the season progresses things will change and pole will be a good place to start from.
With no real knowledge of fuel loads and such I still believe that Ferrari are much quicker than they appear over a single lap. And as far as the race goes, they seem to have much better pace lap after lap. I expect a Ferrari 1-2 tomorrow regardless of where they qualify. Now I wish I could go back and change my vote for the finish.
I hope zie Germans get spectacular tomorrow however! Go Schumacher and Vettel!

Hey Keith sorry to be a pain but do you think in the future you could make the Mclaren and Ferrari colors just a little bit more different. They are really similar and I have a bit of trouble distinguishing them. Fantastic Analysis as always.

I loved the new charts showing the lap times of the drivers during the session. Great way to compare them.

Unfortunately we don’t have a clue what they were doing though. Even mnore so now than in previous years. They could be trying qualy simulation, a run on full fuel or maybe on half fuel. The difference in laptimes could be vast.

So even if you look at a “long run” there could for instance be a 70kg fuel difference if they are trying out a run after simulating a mid race tyre change vs a race start simulation on a tank completely filled up.

This also makes the 1% chart a bit suspect. Drivers who do a qualy simulation will come off looking a lot worse than ones who don’t.

There is just no way of knowing if they are close to the limit of the car and the car is simply performing less (heavier, different tyres) or if the it’s the driver.